A Man and His Money | Page 4

passionate! Then she, orchids, shining car and all were whirled on.
Rattle! bang! went the iron-rimmed wheels of other rougher vehicles.
Bing! bang! sounded the piano like a soul in torment.
Horatio Heatherbloom stood motionless; then his figure swayed
slightly. He lifted the music, as if to shield his features from the
others--his many auditors; but they didn't mind that brief interruption; it
afforded a moment for that rough and ready dialogue which a gathering
of this kind finds to its liking.
"Give him a trokee! Anybody got a cough drop?"
"It's soothing syrup he wants."
"No; it's us wants that."
"What the devil--" Mr. Mackintosh looked out of the wagon.
Mr. Heatherbloom suddenly laughed, a forced reckless laugh. "Guess it
was the dampness. I'm like some artists--have to be careful where I

sing."
"Have a tablet, feller, do!" said a man in the audience.
Horatio looked him in the eye. "Maybe it's you want something."
The facetious one began to back away; he had seen that look before, the
steely glint that goes before battle.
"The chord now, if you please!" said Mr. Heatherbloom to the
composer in a still quiet voice.
Mr. Mackintosh hit viciously; Mr. Heatherbloom sang again; he did
more than that. He outdid himself; he employed bombast,--some
thought it pathos. He threw a tremolo into his voice; it passed for
emotion. He "caught 'em", in Mr. Mackintosh's parlance, and "caught
'em hard". Some more people bought copies. The alert Mr. Mackintosh
managed to gather in about a dollar, and saw, in consequence, great
fortune "coming his way" at last; the clouds had a golden lining.
"Say, you're the pard I've been a-looking for!" he jubilantly told Mr.
Heatherbloom as they prepared to move on. "We'll make a beautiful
team. Isn't it a peach?"
"What?"
"That song. It made them look like a rainy day. Git up!" And Mr.
Mackintosh prodded the bony ribs of their steed.
Mr. Heatherbloom absent-mindedly gazed in the direction the big
shining motor had vanished.
CHAPTER II
VARYING FORTUNES
Mr. Heatherbloom's new-found employment proved but ephemeral.
The next day the sheriff took possession of the music emporium and all

it contained, including the nomadic piano and the now empty jug. The
contents of the last the composer-publisher took care to put beyond
reach of his many creditors whom he, in consequence, faced with a
seemingly care-free, if artificial, jocularity. Mr. Heatherbloom walked
soberly forth from the shop of concord.
He had but turned the corner of the street when into the now dissonant
"hole in the wall", amid the scene of wreck and disaster, stepped a tall
dark man, with a closely cropped beard, who spoke English with an
accent and who regarded the erstwhile proprietor and the minions of the
law with ill-concealed arrogance and disfavor.
"You have," he began in halting tones, "a young man here who sings on
the street like the minstrels of old, the--what you call
them?--troubadours."
"We had," corrected Mr. Mackintosh. "He has just 'jumped the coup,'
or rather been 'shooed out'."
The new-comer fastened his gaze upon the other; he had superb, almost
mesmeric eyes. "Will you kindly speak the language as I understand
it?" he said. And the other did, for there was that in the caller's manner
which compelled immediate compliance. Immovably he listened to the
composer-publisher's explanation.
"Eh bien!" he said, his handsome, rather barbaric head high when Mr.
Mackintosh had concluded. "He is gone; it is well; I have fulfilled my
mission." And walking out, the imposing stranger hailed a taxi and
disappeared from the neighborhood.
Meanwhile Mr. Horatio Heatherbloom had walked slowly on; he was
now some distance from the one-time "emporium." Where should he go?
His fortunes had not been enhanced materially by his brief excursion
into the realms of melody; he had thirty cents in cash and a
"dollar-and-a-half appetite." An untidy place where they displayed a
bargain assortment of creature comforts attracted his gaze. He thought
of meals in the past--of caviar, a la Russe, three dollars and a half a
portion; peaches Melba, three francs each at the Café de Paris; truffled

capon from Normandy; duck after the manner of the incomparable
Frederic. About half a dozen peaches Melba would have appealed to
him now; he looked, instead, with the eyes of longing at a codfish ball.
Oh, glorious appetite, mocking recollections of hours of satiety!
Should he yield to temptation? He stopped; then prudence prevailed.
The day was yet too young to give way recklessly to casual
gastronomic allurements, so he stepped on again quickly, averting his
head from shop windows. Lest his caution and conservatism might give
way, he started to turn into a side street--but didn't.
Instead, he laughed slightly to himself. What! flee from an outpost of
time-worn celery? beat an inglorious retreat before